


One Day At A Time

by JustAnotherFan05



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU, Action, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Drama, F/M, Iron Man - Freeform, Original Character - Freeform, Parent Pepper Potts, Pepperony - Freeform, Pregnant Pepper Potts, SHIELD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 06:07:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15657303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAnotherFan05/pseuds/JustAnotherFan05
Summary: After successfully defeating Thanos, Tony Stark, Doctor Strange, Peter Parker, and the Guardians of the Galaxy are stuck on Titan. With no way home, all hope is lost, until someone familiarly unfamiliar comes up with a way to bring them home.





	1. Chapter One: Earth - April 27th, 2018

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone!
> 
> So, this isn't really a one shot, but it is a short story... 
> 
> I wrote this for my best friend, who specially requested these events to happen (granted, with a little creative freedom on my part) in a Pepperony/Iron Man/Avengers Fanfiction AU.
> 
> I hope you all enjoy it and thank you for reading!

Chapter One: Earth – April 27th, 2018

“Honey,” Pepper panted, trying to keep up with the fast and continuous string of words coming out of her husband’s mouth.

Tony sped up his pace enough to keep up with Pepper as they continued their morning walk through Central Park. “Slow down! Slow down and I’ll explain it to you,” he begged, almost jogging to keep up with his wife.

“You’re totally rambling,” Pepper warned Tony, shaking her head slightly as he continued to speak. “You’ve lost me.”

“No, I’m not…Look, you know how you’re having a dream and in your dream, you have to pee?” Tony asked, internally grateful that their quickened pace turned into a casual walk.

“Yeah,” Pepper agreed quickly with a gentle nod of her head.

“Okay, and then you’re like, ‘Oh my God, there’s no bathroom. What am I going to do? Oh, someone’s watching me…” Tony tried his best to explain.

“Right, and then you wake up, and in real life, you actually have to pee,” Pepper finished for him, knowing exactly what he was talking about.

“Yes!” Tony confirmed excitedly, bringing Pepper to a stop under the shade of a nearby tree.

“Yeah, everybody has that,” Pepper said, trying to figure out where Tony was trying to go with this conversation.

“Right?! That’s the point I’m trying to make,” Tony told Pepper in relief. “Last night, I dreamt that we had a kid. It was so real. We named him after an eccentric uncle, uh, what was his name?”

“Right…” Pepper sighed, looking down at the ground, now fully understanding Tony’s point.

“Morgan,” Tony remembered, continuing his ‘story’. “Morgan.”

“So, you woke up and…” Pepper asked him, looking back into Tony’s eyes.

“Naturally…” Tony whispered, building on Pepper’s every word in anticipation.

“Thought that we were…” Pepper continued, leaving her sentences on lingering thoughts as she waited for Tony to reveal his reason of excitement.

“Expecting,” Tony finished for her eagerly.

“Yeah,” Pepper sighed, her suspicions confirmed by Tony’s own words.

“Yes?” Tony asked, and for a moment, Pepper saw something flash across Tony’s eyes. It was an emotion she had only seen a few times before, and there was only one way she could describe it: pure happiness. “Please? Maybe?” he begged, like a child asking for a Christmas present.

When Pepper woke up that morning, she certainly didn’t expect Tony to be pestering her about a possible child of their own. But little did Tony know, his ‘dream’ was becoming a reality faster than he could ask for it to happen.

“Tony,” Pepper watched as the look in Tony’s eyes slowly changed into a look of disappointment, and it broke her heart. “If you wanted to have a kid, you wouldn’t have done _that_ ,” she said, pointing to the new arc reactor in Tony’s chest.

“I’m glad you brought this up because it’s nothing. It’s just a housing unit for nano parts,” Tony tried to explain, quickly noticing as Pepper got even more disappointed in his numerous excuses.

Pepper shrugged her shoulders in disbelief . “You’re just _not_ helping your case,” she warned him with a soft scoff.

“No, it’s just an attachment… It’s not,” Tony tried to defend himself, but it was no use, she was right, after all.

“You don’t need that,” Pepper told him, pushing aside all his bull and getting to the point.

“I know I had the surgery, I’m just trying to protect us,” Tony explained again, stepping closer to Pepper and putting his hands on her shoulders. “And any future us’es and that’s it, just in case there’s a monster in the closet instead of, you know…”

Pepper sighed again, but this time, she wasn’t disappointed, she was relieved. With all the crazy things Tony has done in the past, and all his absurd excuses to have an Iron Man suit on standby, this reason was one she could actually support. All he wanted to do was protect them from harm, and if there was one person in the universe Pepper knew she could rely on to protect them, it was Tony. “Yes,” she said simply, looking at Tony.

“Yes?” Tony asked, confused as to what Pepper was agreeing to. Their conversation had drifted in so many ways, he didn’t know what they were talking about anymore.

“Yes, we’re expecting,” Pepper smiled at Tony, and the millisecond the information of confirmation went through Tony Stark’s genius brain, the look of pure happiness returned to his eyes.

“Yes?” Tony repeated, this time, with an ever growing smile on his face. “Yes!” he said a little louder, trying to stop himself from the instinct to jump up and down in joy.

But their happy moment was ruined by the loud sound of a whirling whoosh, then all of a sudden, a man dressed in a dark blue outfit with a red cape appeared. “Tony Stark, I’m Doctor Stephen Strange. I need you to come with me.”

And just like that, their world changed forever.

*

Titan – April 27th, 2018

The fight on Titan against Thanos was proving more difficult than any of the Avengers or Guardians of the Galaxy had initially thought, but eventually, Doctor Strange came up with a decent plan and within moments, the world around them turned into the biggest case of de ja vu.

“I don’t get how this is going to help,” Tony strained through their radio communication after getting a moon thrown at him for the seemingly millionth time.

Doctor Strange whooshed his magical wizard powers and tried another way of defeating Thanos, but when it didn’t work, he reversed time and the whole team of superheroes were forced to repeat the fight again. “Trust me, it’ll work,” the doctor reassured everyone.

“Mr. Wizard Dude?” Peter Parker asked, webbing Thanos’ hand _again_. “How come we remember everything, even though we keep going back in time?”

“I’ve made the dimensions change around us, but we’re still moving through time, unlike Thanos,” Doctor Strange tried to explain quickly as he worked out another possible way to defeat the mad Titan.

“Okay?” Peter Parker questioned, still unsure of how the time loop worked, but grateful that none of them were dying every other minute. “Mr. Stark, I’m running low on web fluid.”

“You have reserves in your suit, kid,” Tony assured the newest Avenger. “Just keep webbing him up.”

“Got it,” Spiderman agreed, swinging through the air and shooting web bombs at Thanos again and again.

It took them three hours of getting repeatedly beat up, until finally, the wizard came up with the perfect solution.

“Alright, here goes nothing!” Doctor Strange proclaimed as he whooshed a magic portal beside Thanos’ armed hand and then whooshed it closed, effectively cutting off Thanos’ arm.

“Eww!!” Peter Quill coiled, turning away from the gory scene. “Really? Was that necessary?”

“Did you have a better plan?” Doctor Strange asked Starlord, obviously sarcastically.

Thanos fell to his knees, looking at his dismembered arm. “I can’t believe it…” he mumbled in disbelief. “My master plan, ruined.”

Tony flew over to the amputated limb and picked up the Infinity Gauntlet, holding in under his arm as Doctor Strange finished with Thanos.

“Excuse me,” Starlord interjected, pushing past his team mates until he was standing beside the doctor. “May I have the honors? After all, he did kill my girlfriend…” Peter Quill reminded everyone, never taking his eyes off Thanos’ suffering expression.

Doctor Strange nodded and took a few steps back, watching as Peter Quill raised his weapon to Thanos’ head.

“This, is for Gamora,” Peter Quill said, and without another moment of hesitation, blasted a hole through Thanos’ mortal head.

Just like that… The universe was saved.

“Well,” Tony spoke up after a few moments of awkward silence. “What do we do now?”

“We return you all to your home planets,” Doctor Strange said simply, pulling out his time stone from his necklace.

But that’s when they all saw it. The price of playing with time too many times. The price of altering the fate of the universe again. The price was the destruction of the time stone.

“Umm, I’m not genius like Mr. Stark,” Peter Parker said, his mask retreated into his new Iron Spider suit. “But I don’t think your green gem should be… smoking.”

The rest of the superheroes listening in decided to give young Peter Parker the benefit of innocence, as his previous statement was something Captain Obvious would say.

“This isn’t good,” Doctor Strange mumbled, loud enough for Tony to hear.

“Was that our _only_ way home?” Tony asked, hoping to hear a firm ‘no’, but not being so lucky.

“This was our only way back to our time,” Doctor Strange clarified. “We can go home using any spaceship, but what era of time we’ll return too? I’m not sure.”

Tony dropped the Infinity Gauntlet onto the floor in shock, hearing the metal clang against the cold rocks. “You’re saying… What took us _two_ days to complete might actually be something like _two years_ back on Earth?”

“Maybe more,” Doctor Strange sighed. “We repeated our battle against Thanos numerous times,” he reminded everyone. “We could be talking anywhere from two weeks to twenty years…”

Tony Stark didn’t know whether to scream in frustration, cry in shock, or fight in anger. In fact, he was prompted to do all three. “WHAT?! Did you say _twenty years_?!”

“We won’t know until we return to Earth,” Doctor Strange confirmed.

“About that,” a small voice could be heard in the near distance. Everyone turned around to see Nebula standing beside Mantis, both looking sadly at the three ships they used to arrive on Titan.

For obvious reasons, the ship Tony, Doctor Strange, and Peter Parker took to Titan was destroyed upon impact. The ship Peter Quill, Drax, and Mantis took to Titan was destroyed during battle after being used as a projectile towards the team. And the ship Nebula took to Titan was heavily damaged after the remnants of a fallen moon crashed into it.

“Oh no,” Tony shook his head, rushing over to Nebula’s ship, the most intact out of the three.

“Can’t you just reverse time and fix them?” Peter Parker asked Doctor Strange hopefully.

“With what stone?” Doctor Strange asked, looking back down as his disintegrated time stone.

Peter Parker sighed in remembrance, nodding his head and trying to think of another way back. 

In retrospect, Tony could’ve used his Iron Man suit to travel back home since it was newly coded to survive space travel. _But_ Tony didn’t have his suit anymore. After his one on one fight with Thanos, he was lucky to still have his life.

“Well, this is great,” Peter Quill scoffed, putting his hands on his hips. “Now what do we do?”

The entire team was speechless, none of them having the slightest clue on how to fix their newest problem. They were stuck on a foreign planet in another galaxy, far away from home without any way of contacting anyone for help.

“Pepper…” Tony suddenly remembered, a new sense of panic settling inside him. “I’m sorry.”


	2. Chapter Two: Earth – February 15th, 2019

Chapter Two: Earth – February 15th, 2019

Tony Stark had been missing for almost a year now, and every day, his absence grew more and more present in Pepper, both literally and figuratively.

Pepper was due to give birth to her and Tony’s first child any day now, and Tony was missing all of it. She knew, deep down, he had to be alive. But with every passing day, her lingering amounts of hope grew less and less.

It became official one month after Tony left her in Central Park that he and other members of the Avengers were missing in action. No one knew where they were, what they were doing, or how they got there, but everyone knew it was their heroism that saved the universe.

However, when the day came for their baby girl to arrive into the world, the pain of not having Tony there by her side grew into something more than it ever was: pure sadness.

Out of all the people in the world who deserved to be a father, Tony was one of the top few. And finally, after decades of being a better man, he finally got the chance, but he wasn’t there and it broke Pepper’s heart.

On February 22nd, Pepper Stark gave birth to a healthy baby girl whom she named Antonia Maria Stark, in memory of the baby’s father.

At first, Pepper wasn’t sure she would be able to raise a baby on her own, but given that she had no choice, she did her best to raise their child to become the best woman she could be. In doing so, Pepper was convinced that the best way to protect their daughter was to never tell her about who her father really was.

Pepper ordered Jarvis to lock down Tony’s workshop and all his Iron Man suits, and she hid all evidence of his superhero efforts from baby Toni. For the most part, Pepper was successful in keeping her secrets, as Toni lived a somewhat normal life away from the paparazzi.

In fact, Pepper was _so_ good at keeping her secret, Toni didn’t find out the truth until fifteen years later, when on her fifteenth birthday, Toni wandered down the forbidden staircase and found a darkened room encased in glass walls.

“What’s this?” Toni asked curiously, stepping up to the glass door. She carefully placed her hand against the walls and all of a sudden, the holograms on the door came to life. “Huh?”

“Name and password, please,” a strong, male British voice asked the young teen.

“I… I don’t have a password,” Toni stuttered slightly. “But, my name is Antonia Maria Stark.”

There was a slight pause, then the sound of a mechanism clicking. “Please insert your right thumb onto the finger pad,” the British voice instructed.

Toni looked down at the door and noticed a small thumb pad by the handle. She curiously followed the strange instructions and placed her thumb on the designated area.

“Ow!” Toni yelped as something pricked her finger, drawing a drop of blood onto the finger pad.

“Analysis complete,” the British voice finished, running a full blood DNA test through his computer system within seconds. “Welcome, Miss Stark,” Jarvis stated, unlocking the workshop door.

Toni pushed open the glass door and stepped into the large room, watching in awe as all the lights started to automatically turn on as well as all the machines and holograms around the shop.

“Woah,” Toni smiled, looking around at all the different technologically advanced systems.

As Toni walked around the newly revived workshop, the familiar sound of clicking heels echoed through the hallways upstairs. “Toni!!” Pepper yelled, searching frantically for her daughter.

“Mom?” Toni asked, quickly moving back towards the staircase. “Mom, I’m down here!”

Those were words Pepper never wanted to hear, but the second she heard them, she rushed down the spiral staircase towards Tony’s lab downstairs. “Toni, what are you doing down here? I thought I told you not to come here!”

“But mom!” Toni tried to reason, but her excuse was quickly cut off by her very upset mother.

“No ‘buts’! I told you not to come down here and… Jarvis, I thought I told _you_ not to let anyone down here!” Pepper yelled, looking up at the ceiling where she knew one of Jarvis’ cameras was placed.

“My apologies, ma’am,” Jarvis started. “But my protocols allow for anyone carrying Stark DNA complete access to Mr. Stark’s workshop.”

“What ever happened to _my_ protocols?” Pepper asked with a slight sense of disappointment.

“With all due respect, ma’am, I am an artificial intelligence system created to serve Mr. Stark,” Jarvis kindly reminded Pepper.

And she couldn’t argue with that. Jarvis was Tony’s AI, and he just so happened to help out a few other people along the way under Tony’s consent.

“Mom, wait,” Toni held up her hands. “What is all this? I thought you said my dad was a businessman, not a… a scientist!”

“He was a businessman,” Pepper told her daughter honestly. “But… He was also a lot of other things.”

“Like _what_?” Toni asked, somewhat angry at the fact that she was only now learning about this.

“It’s complicated, Toni,” Pepper sighed, rubbing her pending migraine away.

“Then un-complicate it,”  Toni crossed her arms, looking at her mom with the same big brown puppy eyes Tony always used to use on her, the eyes that she could never say ‘no’ to.

“You look so much like your father,” Pepper frowned slightly, placing her hand on Toni’s cheek. “Alright, I guess there’s no reason to keep the charade up now… Come on upstairs, I’ll make us some hot chocolate and you can ask me whatever you want.”

To say their mother-daughter conversation lasted a long time would be a severe understatement, but after two cups of hot chocolate each and a long night of discussion, every question had an answer.

“So, my dad was a science and tech _genius_ who created a super suit that he used to fight bad guys, and one day, he left on a mission and never came home?” Toni asked in summary.

Pepper nodded, finishing the last of her warm beverage. “Yeah,” she confirmed simply. “I wanted to tell you, Toni… But your father was, he was…” she paused, trying her best not to cry. “Your father loved you from the moment he found out you existed, but he never got the chance to actually be a father. He was called for his mission only a few _minutes_ after I told him I was pregnant with you, and he still hasn’t come home since.”

“Has anyone tried looking for him?” Toni asked, absorbing all this new information.

“Of course,” Pepper assured Toni. “We, I mean… SHIELD searched for all of them for years, but they took an alien ship up to space, so there was no real way of tracking any of them.”

“What about the Iron Man suit? Doesn’t that have a tracker?” Toni asked hopefully.

“It did,” Pepper agreed. “But we lost the suit’s signal a few days after the team left…”

There was a moment of silence between the two of them, until Toni finally asked the question she had been afraid to ask all night.

“Do you think he’s still alive?” Toni wondered. “Do you think he’s still out there?”

Pepper paused for another minute to think about her answer. “I do,” she smiled softly. “I’ve known your father for decades, and if there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that Starks aren’t quitters. I know your father is out there somewhere, trying to find his way home to us.”

Toni nodded, looking up at her mom and seeing the rare expression race across her eyes: pure hope. And her mom’s hope inspired her hope.

“I have an idea,” Toni said. “And it’s a crazy idea, but I think it might work.”

“An idea for what? To find your father?” Pepper asked, knowing the answer before she even asked the question.

“Like you said, mom,” Toni smiled at Pepper. “Starks’ aren’t quitters.”


	3. Chapter Three: Titan – April 30th, 2018

Chapter Three: Titan – April 30th, 2018

“Peter, will you quit doing that please?” Tony asked loudly, turning to face the Starlord with the most exasperated look on his face. The sound of Starlord throwing rocks against the metal ship with a loud _clang_ for two days straight was driving the genius insane.

“You’re not the boss of me,” Peter Quill defended, throwing another rock against the broken vessel with another loud _bang_.

Tony tried to stand up quickly in anger, ready to face Peter Quill for another one on one fight, but his stab wound to his abdomen stopped him in his tracks. “I swear, if I find a way off his planet, I’m leaving you behind.”

“As if you’d find a way off his planet,” Peter Quill scoffed, throwing another rock. “We’re stuck here, Stark, and there’s nothing you or any of us can do about it.”

“Mr. Stark,” Peter Parker groaned, turning on his side beside Tony. The young teen was sleeping, but their loud argument work him up. “I’m hungry.”

“I know, kid,” Tony sighed, rubbing Peter Parker’s shoulder gently. “I know.”

Nebula and Doctor Strange stepped over in front of Tony, looking down at the genius superhero as he sat tiredly against the rocks.

“Stark,” Doctor Strange said firmly. “Do you have any more nano parts from your suit?”

“What are you two doing with all my stuff anyway?” Tony asked, trying to look behind them at the beaten ship they’ve been working on.

“We’re trying to get us all home,” Nebula said, a tone of sarcasm in her voice.

With nothing to lose, Tony summoned the last of his nano suit to his hand, creating a ball of nano parts and tossing it to the wizard. “That’s the last of it. You’ve run me dry.”

“Thanks,” Doctor Strange smiled weakly at Tony, turning on his heels and heading back to the ship with Nebula.

“Do you think we’ll make it, Mr. Stark?” Peter Parked asked weakly, moving to sit up beside Tony. They were all beaten, tired, and hungry, but their only chance of getting home was in the hands of a cyborg and a wizard.

“We have to, kid,” Tony told the teen. “We saved the universe. The least the universe can do is save us in return.”

Peter Parker paused for a moment and raised his eyebrow at his mentor. “I don’t think that’s how this all works, Mr. Stark.”

“At this point, any piece of hope works for me,” Tony sighed, looking at the boy sadly. He didn’t have any more encouraging words to share, for he too was running low on optimism.

*

Earth – March 2nd, 2034

After hearing Toni’s idea, Pepper knew she wouldn’t be able to stop the young teen from fulfilling her plans, just like how she was never able to stop Tony once he had his mind set on something.

Pepper brought Toni to SHIELD headquarters, where after another long explanation to Director Maria Hill, the secret organization agreed to help the young Stark.

“Don’t get your hopes up, kid,” Director Hill warned her. “We’ve tried almost everything to get Tony and the rest of the team back.”

“Key word: _almost_ ,” Toni smirked and took a seat at one of the computers on the main bridge of the SHIELD helicarrier.

Her fingers typed fast and her brain worked hard; in that moment, she was the spitting image of her father. She entered a multitude of codes and sequences into the computer’s algorisms, and all of a sudden, a loud _ding_ filled the room.

“There’s no way…” Director Hill stated in awe, looking at Toni’s computer screen.

Pepper’s jaw was dropped as she laid her eyes on a small white dot appeared on the large black screen. “You found them.”

“How did you do that?” Director Hill asked in disbelief, moving her face closer to the screen to confirm what they were all staring at.

“Mom said the Iron Man suit was made out of nano tech, and every single nano is made out of a tiny robot,” Toni explained easily. “Even if a thousand nano parts were destroyed, you only need to find _one_ to track it. So, I calibrated your sensors to search for nano pieces with the specific coding dad used for his suit, and with the help of a few Stark satellites that have been pre-calibrated to lock on to dad’s signal, I found him.”

Both Pepper and Maria Hill stood there in shock.

“I thought you said you already tried using satellites to track his nano suit,” Pepper turned towards Director Hill.

“We did, but we couldn’t lock on to his signal because there was too much interference,” Director Hill explained.

“So, we found him,” Toni reminded everyone in the room. “Now what do we do?”

Without another moment of hesitation, Pepper responded. “Now, we go get him.”

*

Titan – May 1st, 2018

After almost five days of no food or water, the mortals of the superhero group should’ve been dead. But by some miracle of time differences between dimensions, they were all still alive.

“It’s not going to work,” Doctor Strange informed the group sadly. “There’s not enough working parts, and even with the few nano parts we used from the Iron Man suit, it’s still not enough.”

“So, what you’re saying is, we’re still stuck on this unearthly planet with absolutely no means of escape,” Tony summed up bluntly, his energy level too low and his injury too present.

When the wizard didn’t respond, Tony knew his accusations were true.

“How many days have we been stuck here?” Tony asked, looking around between everyone who had been suffering far less than he and Peter Parker, both of them the only two real mortals.

“Almost a week, if we’re measuring by Earth days,” Mantis answered for Tony.

“And if we’re measuring by our messed up time zone days?” Tony asked again, looking at Doctor Strange.

The wizard shrugged his shoulders and sighed heavily. “Like I said before, we won’t know until we return to Earth.”

“ _If_ we return to Earth,” Tony corrected him quickly.

The group stayed in silence for a long while, all of them either thinking of other ways to escape Titan or thinking of how they were going to spend their last days alive on a foreign planet.

Hours passed before anyone dared to move, no one having a real purpose or reason to move anyway. Then, out of nowhere, there was a loud _boom_ followed by a continuous _screech_.

“What the hell?” Tony questioned, looking around for the source of the obnoxious sound.

Drax stood up quickly and pointed towards the sky. “Look! We’re saved! It is another vessel!”

At his words, everyone turned to look at the sky, and sure enough, a medium sized ship was flying straight at them.

“Umm, guys,” Peter Quill mumbled. “How do we know that’s a _friendly_ ship?”

The realization dawned on them all at the same time, and suddenly, their relief turned into panic.

“Everyone, hide!” Tony called out and within seconds, everyone was on their feet, scrambling to find the best hiding spot behind the large boulders or in between the wreckage of the broken ships.

It only took a hundred and twenty three seconds for the new ship to land on Titan, and another fifty eight seconds for the back door to open and reveal a young woman walking out, followed by two other older looking women and a team of six military men.

“Tony!” Pepper called out, and the second her voice rang through his ears, he knew exactly who it was.

“Pepper?” Tony questioned, wondering if he was imagining her voice or if he had truly gone insane. There was no way she would be here, no way she _could_   be here… They were in _space_.

“Tony!!” Pepper called again, walking behind the team of military men with caution. “Tony, where are you?”

Tony was convinced that either Pepper was really there, and if she wasn’t, he would have no problem dying to an alien who sounded exactly like his wife. At least he’d go out dreaming.

So, he slowly stood on his feet, holding his stab wound with one hand and using his other hand as support against the large boulder, stumbling around the rock to stand in view of his wife.

“Pepper?” Tony asked again, a little louder, but his voice still weak. Yet, it was enough for Pepper to hear, and her head whipped around so fast, she probably got a little whiplash.

The second Pepper laid her eyes on Tony, a plethora of emotions raced through her, the main one: pure relief.

“Tony!” Pepper yelled, racing past the team of armed men and rushing towards her husband.

“Pepper!” Tony hollered back, the feeling of relief filling him up as well as he stepped as fast as he could towards the love of his life.

Finally, the couple held each other in their arms again, holding onto one another so tightly, it was suffocating, but neither of them seemed to mind one bit. Tears streamed down both their cheeks, with Pepper’s arms wrapped around Tony’s neck and Tony’s arms folded around Pepper’s waist.

“Oh God, Tony,” Pepper cried, burying her face into Tony’s neck. “You’re alive.”

Tony had no words to say in that moment, his main focus being on the familiar, heart-warming smell of Pepper, a smell he associated with the thought of _home_. If this was a mirage, he wanted to enjoy every last second of it.

“Tony,” Pepper said his name again, and every time Tony heard it, it felt more and more real.

Reluctantly, the couple pulled away from one another and immediately, Pepper scanned Tony’s figure with her watchful eyes. That’s when she caught sight of his injury, the iced sealant melted and an infection growing around the dried blood.

“Pepper,” Tony whispered before Pepper could speak about his wound. “Why are you here? _How_ are you here?” he asked, his vision suddenly getting a little blurry as all his remaining energy was used during their reunion.

“We found you, Tony. You’ve been missing for fifteen _years_ ,” Pepper told him, trying to break the news to him as gently as possible, but seeing no real two ways about it.

A million thoughts raced through Tony’s mind at once, followed by another million questions and a few thousand apologies.

“I… I’m sorry,” Tony mumbled, but that was all he was able to say before his vision went black and his body passed out.

“Tony!” Pepper yelped, catching his weight before they both fell onto the ground. “Help!”

With her call, the team of military men raced over and helped pick Tony up, carefully carrying him back to the spaceship.

“Is that him?” Toni asked, standing back beside the spaceship during her parent’s reunion.

“That’s him,” Director Hill confirmed for the young teen. “That’s your father.”

Peter Parker overheard Director Hill as the rest of the team filed into the spaceship. “Father?”

“Yeah,” Toni sighed, looking between Tony, who was now lying on a gurney, and Peter Parker.

“I didn’t know Mr. Stark had a daughter,” Peter Parker said, confused about their situation.

“Mr. Parker,” Director Hill addressed the young man. “It’s been fifteen years since you all left Earth on the giant alien spaceship.”

Peter’s jaw dropped, shocked and surprised at the news. But there was no time for answers as everyone was quickly rushed onto the ship.

“We have to get him medical attention,” Pepper said to no one in particular, sitting beside Tony, holding onto his limp hand.

As soon as everyone was on board, Director Hill stepped to the front of the ship and immediately took off, leaving the planet Titan behind.

“I hope we never see this world again,” Nebula said, looking out the small window as the orange planet became smaller and smaller in the distance.

“Agreed,” Doctor Strange nodded, sitting back in his seat and heaving out a loud breath of relief.

They were only about twenty minutes into their journey through space when the ship started to shake like a plane going through turbulence.

“Uhh, guys…?” Peter Quill said, getting everyone’s attention. “I may be a space traveler, but I don’t think I’ve ever gone through a _rainbow_ colored vortex…” he continued, pointing out the small window.

Outside of their spaceship, their surroundings started turning into a rainbow colored wave, turning the sky into a flurry of colors like a drunk disco ball.

“Oh no,” Doctor Strange mumbled, noticing the changing colors and knowing exactly what was happening.

“Oh no? What do you mean ‘oh no’?” Peter Quill panicked, staring at the wizard in worry.

“It’s the time stone,” Doctor Strange explained quickly. “It’s power is infinite, using the stone means it cannot be destroyed.”

“But it turned to _dust_ , remember?” Peter Parker reminded everyone.

“It did,” Doctor Strange confirmed. “But it’s coming back, and the last time it did this…”

“What happened, Doctor?” Pepper asked from her seat at the front of the ship, listening to their ongoing conversation.

“Well, it fixed everything,” Doctor Strange said simply, but maybe a little too simply.

Everyone was searching for the words to say, but Drax said it best. “What do you mean it _fixed_ everything? I do not see how this is _fixing_ something.”

“The time stone,” Doctor Strange started again. “It controls time, and now, it’s making everything right.”

Before anyone could ask any more questions, the ship started to shake even more violently.

“Everyone, hold on!” Director Hill exclaimed, and as everyone held onto their seats, their ship flew straight through the time stone’s portal, bringing them on the roller coaster ride of their lives.

For a full ten seconds, the ship was thrashed around through a spiraling vortex of rainbow colors, until finally, they were spit out the other end, right back into Earth’s atmosphere.

Director Hill regained control of their ship, and centered their fight once again. “Is everyone okay?” she asked over her shoulder towards her passengers.

They all took a moment to collect themselves, and were startled out of their confusion when a loud gasp filled the room.

“Tony!” Pepper shrieked, watching as Tony sat straight up from the gurney, completely out of breath. “Calm down, honey, it’s okay.”

Tony breathed deeply, looking around like a deer in headlights, then finally, his sights landed back on Pepper. “Pepper? What happened?”

Pepper looked around the ship, seemingly just as confused as Tony. “I… I don’t know.”

It took them all a few minutes, but it turns out, _no one_ remembered anything about their trip through the vortex.

“All I remember was you rescuing us from Titan,” Tony told his wife, who looked around confused still.

“It’s done,” Doctor Strange said softly.

“What’s done?” Tony asked the wizard, pulling Pepper up to sit beside him and wrapping his arm around her protectively.

“Don’t worry, Stark,” Doctor Strange reassured him. “You saved the universe, and now, the universe has given you another chance…”

Tony and Pepper were both confused, as was everyone else on the ship, except for Doctor Strange. Director Hill landed the ship on the SHIELD helicarrier, and everyone got off quickly.

“Hill!” Director Fury called, walking off the bridge and onto the landing platform. “Where have you been? We’ve been looking for you! And why are you with them?”

“Sir?” Maria Hill asked, wondering how Director Fury was standing in front of them instead of being retired like he had been for almost a decade.

“Stop messing around and get back to work,” Director Fury ordered. “Sometimes I wonder why I made you my deputy Director…” Fury finished, turning on his heels to leave.

“Wait, Director Fury!” Pepper called out to the man dressed in all black.

Fury stopped in his tracks and turned to face the redhead. “Yes, Mrs. Stark?”

“What year is it?” Pepper asked him, still holding onto Tony tightly.

“Now what kind of stupid question is that?” Fury scoffed, shaking his head.

“Just answer the lady, Nick,” Tony called back, trying not to take offense for Pepper’s sake.

Fury sighed and shook his head, turning back around and walking towards the helicarrier’s bridge. “2018!” he yelled over his shoulder before disappearing into the distance.

Pepper had no recollection of the fifteen years Tony was missing, and the rest of the team didn’t seem to remember anything that happened after being rescued.

“Pepper,” Tony asked softly, turning to face Pepper. “Before I left on this mission, were we walking through Central Park, talking about having to pee in a dream?”

“Yeah, and you said when you wake up, you actually have to pee,” Pepper remembered their conversation.

The thought dawned at them at the same time, and the two raced into the helicarrier towards the medical ward, Tony’s stab wound mysteriously gone after their trip through the time vortex.

By the time the technician came into their room and ran a few tests, their suspicions were confirmed.

“Congratulations, Mrs. Stark, you’re pregnant,” the ultrasound technician confirmed.

Tony smiled at Pepper, squeezing her hand gently and leaning over to kiss her passionately. The universe was saved, Thanos was defeated, and time had restored itself back to the way it was.

The team was reportedly gone for only six days, and Pepper was still pregnant with her and Tony’s first child.

Like Doctor Strange had said, the universe had given them a second chance at the life they deserved, and now, Tony wasn’t going to miss another minute of it.

The End…?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To my best friend (you know who you are),  
> I hope I did your 'perfect fanfiction' justice and I hope you enjoyed reading it! It's a little shorter than I had originally planned, but I think it worked out perfectly. I hope the timelines weren't too confusing (I tried to help by including an Earth vs Titan warning as well as a current year warning) and I hope the ending made sense. Let me know if you liked it!  
> Your personal FF writer and BFF,  
> Pep
> 
> And to all my other readers out there, thank you again for your support and for reading this short story! I hope you all enjoyed it as well! I might make a one shot for an 'epilogue', who knows? ;)


End file.
